Significant reduction of errors and better flow gave this specialised producer a historical change in its production volumes.
Background
A manufacturing company in the European agricultural sector that has 220 employees and is an amalgamation of four smaller production companies. It had difficulty keeping up with market demand and was still influenced by the culture of the four craftsmanship-based companies.
The CEO therefore contacted Mantec and requested their assistance.
Implementation
Analysis showed that there was a need to transform the company into a modern goal-driven company with a focus on results. There was also a significant potential for economic improvement. The key changes put in place as a result of the joint project carried out by Mantec and the client were:
- implementation of a goal- and action-based management system with focus on action plans and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) at all levels, including daily production targets for the different production cells;
- consolidation of suppliers, and a rethinking of make or buy decisions to reduce total procurement costs;
- optimising the total logistics and production flow within the company. This included a large reduction of shortages;
- reduction of lead times;
- implementation of a new planning system based on visual boards in production, which helped to bring about fast daily action;
- identification and implementation of Best Demonstrated Practice (BDP) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP);
- improvement of sales management, so that Key Account Managers could monitor reached sales targets and sales activities by sales staff internationally; and
- instituting a total change of the company’s development procedures, by changing the way projects were conducted and by implementing integrated product development.
Training and coaching of managers and their staff, combined with the implementation of the new Management Control System, meant that management at all levels were better placed to understand what was going on in the business, which in turn meant that objectives now could be achieved.
Results
By the end of the project, the client attained the highest production volume in its history without increasing numbers of manual workers.. Other headline benefits to the client arising from the change programme have been:
- production flow is much smoother and with fewer errors; and
- development projects are now completed in a few months instead of running for years, and yield better results.
Overall, the company had a large stock reduction, a large productivity increase and a significant cost reduction.
